Eco Soundings

Tory leader David Cameron wears a green tie, rides a bike and makes a speech about climate change. Cue all the big environment groups doffing their hats and falling over themselves in enthusiasm. Whoa, there! A check back at what the man has said in parliament in his four years as an MP shows there is little evidence that he ever considered the environment before October. His maiden speech talked of the lovely view from his lovely cottage in the Cotswolds; he once urged environment minister Ben Bradshaw to allow one of his constituents to import a queen bee from Hawaii (Bradshaw dismissed him saying there were fine queens in Greece); he asked environment secretary Margaret Beckett to give tax rebates to local shops selling local food, and he once said something about biodiesel. But, really, that was it - until it came to his election at which point everything changed. "I would not paint myself as some sort of environmental saint," he says. Quite.

Cranky over Cameron

But Cameron is also learning how touchy green groups can be. Last week he asked WWF, Friends of the Earth, the RSPB, Greenpeace and the Campaign to Protect Rural England to meet his glamorous eco-team of Zac Goldsmith, John "Gum-Gum" Gummer and Peter Ainsworth MP, but quite forgot to invite the National Trust, which was most upset. On the other hand he called in the tiny - though excellent - Invertebrate Conservation Trust. And his first few days have certainly galvanised Labour. Within minutes of his climate change speech, the Treasury was on the blower asking the green groups for a meeting with Gordon Brown.

On stony ground

Hopes are mounting that the Peak District National Park Authority may at last be gaining the upper hand in its three-year battle to stop quarrying at Backdale Quarry on Longstone Edge. Last week, park chiefs went cap-in-hand to rural affairs minister Jim Knight to ask for backing if new legal action went wrong. Increasingly slick local campaigners, the Save Longstone Edge Group, also sent an explosive agitprop DVD to Knight to press the case. Following the meeting, the park issued a press release promising action soon. Quarry operator Merrimans has declined to comment, but has brought two extra giant rock crushing machines on to the site to rip out even more of the hillside.

Smoke signals

The French oil company Total, which co-owns the former fuel storage depot near Hemel Hempstead, said on Monday it reckoned 30m litres had gone up in smoke - roughly 75,000 tonnes of CO2. To put it in perspective, Tom Morton, of Climate Care, the body that calculates personal and corporate greenhouse gas emissions, says that is about the same as adding 25,000 cars to the road in the UK for a year, or 400 transatlantic flights.

Poultry sums

Millions of wild birds have flown to their wintering sites across Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas, but where are the predicted new cases of bird flu? "The limited outbreaks in eastern Europe are on southerly migration routes but are more likely to be caused by the import of poultry or poultry products. The hypothesis that wild birds are to blame is far from proven," says Birdlife's director Michael Rands.